TWO of Europe’s best two-year-olds of 2022 are the star attractions at Longchamp tomorrow: the Aidan O’Brien-trained Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf hero Victoria Road and the runaway Prix Marcel Boussac winner, Blue Rose Cen.
Victoria Road is no stranger to the French way of racing as he won on both his visits there last term, getting the better of none other than Blue Rose Cen in a valuable listed contest at Deauville in August and then landing a 1m 1f Group 3 at Cihantilly a month later.
O’Brien has gone on the record to say that the Poule d’Essai des Poulains (French 2000 Guineas) on May 14th is his early season target prior to a tilt at the Prix du Jockey Club, hence he reappears in the €80,000 Group 3 Prix de Fontainebleau over the same 1m course and distance as the Poulains.
He faces six opponents and has most to fear from the Jean-Claude Rouget-trained Aga Khan home-bred Almanzor colt Rajapour, who won all three of his juvenile starts including a two-length listed race triumph, and Yann Barberot’s American Flag, a Wootton Basset colt who has fitness on his side having registered an impressive three-length victory in the Listed Prix Omnium four weeks ago.
The Churchill filly Blue Rose Cen gave trainer Christopher Head his first Group 1 success when following up a Group 3 win with a five-length victory in the Boussac, making her last season’s French Champion Two-Year-Old. She makes her comeback in the fillies equivalent of the Fontainebleau, the nine-runner Group 3 Prix de la Grotte.
Lindy, Paz, Autumn Starlight and Algolia will all be putting unbeaten records on the line.
O’Brien also runs Londoner in the other pattern race on the card, the €80,000 Group 3 Prix Noailles over 1m 2f 110y which has attracted a field of seven. Londoner is bred on very similar lines to Victoria Road.
They are both sons of Saxon Warrior out of high-class sprinting mares, in Londoner’s case the dual Group 3 winner, Tickled Pink, whereas Victoria Road’s dam, Gilt Edge Girl, lifted the Group 1 Prix de l’Abbaye.
Londoner has not been seen since landing a mile Dundalk maiden on his second start last October. Entered in all the spring and early summer Classics in both Britain and Ireland, he possibly has most to fear from the recent listed winner Harry Way.